Generally, print devices are installed in communication with a computer system either directly connected to the computer system or connected remotely over a communication network. Printers (e.g., laser printers, ink type printers, plotters, thermal printers, and other print devices, etc.) can require multiple print configuration settings that can be easily facilitated by a computer system. For example, a user may use a computer to define print settings such as size, contrast, color, number of copies, paper type, printing resolution, duplex/single-side printing, margins, etc. Typically, such print settings are mandatorily prompted to the user each time a print command is received by the computer system, which can become cumbersome in cases where a large variety of documents with different print setting specifications are required to be printed. For some print devices, a provision of default print settings was introduced with certain pre-configured print settings as the default setting for every print job. Such default configurations greatly reduced the time and effort required in printing large quantities of different documents. However, even using such default configuration settings, users were still required to select whether or not a print job was to be executed using the default print configuration settings.
Further, use of computer systems in conjunction with the printers provided an ease of transferring printable data from the internal memory of the computer systems to the printers. In addition, the use of the computer systems further facilitated printing of data stored in external memory devices such as USB drives, memory cards, disk drives, etc. However, some printers (hereinafter, referred to as “multi-function devices”) support direct access to external memory devices, such as USB drives, for printing, without any intervention of an external computer system. Such multi-function devices are pre-equipped with their own display module and user interface.
Typically, the multi-function devices are configured to detect presence of an external storage device that is in communication with at least one peripheral port on the multi-function devices. The multi-function devices are further configured to present a graphical user interface to their users for facilitating the users in selecting at least one file for printing. However, the size or quality of the display module and the graphical user interface of the multi-functional devices may not be very user friendly. Therefore, each time when a user tries to print a file directly from an external memory device, the user must manually manipulate the file directory on the external memory device via the user interface in order to locate the file of interest on the external memory device. In addition, the users are prompted by print configuration software for print settings each time the user prints a file, which can be frustrating to the user, for example in case where a large variety of documents are required to be printed.
Therefore, there exists a need for printing methods or systems that can automatically print a large variety of desired documents from an external memory device directly connected to a print device, such as without or with minimal human intervention.